


Warm milk with honey tastes good, so warm strawberry milk should too

by storiewriter



Series: Dreams are the shackles of memory [2]
Category: Gintama
Genre: Gen, Pain, Shinpachi's only mentioned, and seita, as are Kamui and kouka and umibozu, even though i was going for it, hurt without the necessary comfort, platonic, spoilers through the Yoshiwara in Flames arc, this is purely platonic y'all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-22
Updated: 2016-04-22
Packaged: 2018-06-03 18:09:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6620965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storiewriter/pseuds/storiewriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Mami had showed her how to make warm milk and honey to help go to sleep again. Kagura wondered if they had any of that. Maybe strawberry milk would be enough—not like Gin-chan needed any more of that, really. It was probably close enough. She wondered if it would taste good warm. Probably would. Milk was milk, after all."</p>
<p>Kagura has a nightmare after Yoshiwara. Apparently, so does Gin-chan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Warm milk with honey tastes good, so warm strawberry milk should too

            Kagura woke with a stilted whine in the back of her throat and her arm radiating pain. For a moment, she lay in the closet, harsh breath and sweat at her hairline, and stared at the ceiling. The paint was as flaky as it had been since she’d moved into the Yorozuya house, red chips of color barely distinguishable from the wood underneath. Below her, Sadaharu let out a whine, and his paws scratched against the wall—doggy dreams. Gin-chan had to put a metal sheet against the wall so that Sadaharu could dream without breaking anything more than he already had. He’d complained the whole time, promised Kagura that he’d take it out of her pay.

            A smile pulled at the corner of her mouth. Her arm throbbed in time with her heartbeat, still fast but slowing down. She was safe. There were no Yato, not her dumb brother, not the man with the stupid scruff and long hair who goaded her into becoming something she didn’t want to be. Kagura let out a slow breath and closed her eyes. In one-two-three, pause, out one-two-three, like Mami always taught her. It was meant to stop crying, but it worked just as well with this. Her Mami really was smart.

            Mami had also showed her how to make warm milk and honey to help go to sleep again. Kagura wondered if they had any of that. Maybe strawberry milk would be enough—not like Gin-chan needed any more of that, really. It was probably close enough. She wondered if it would taste good warm. Probably would. Milk was milk, after all.

            “Yup,” she whispered, then she pulled herself up into a sitting position, pushing off her good arm and ignoring the wide ache in her side. It was just a big dumb bruise, nothing to worry about. Kagura looked down at the ground, saw where the white of Sadaharu’s back was, and jumped down. The balls of her feet hit the ground in a quiet thud, and she paused a moment to listen. Sadaharu whimpered, scratched the wall. Gin-chan, in the other room, was making noises, and she didn’t really want to know what he was doing in the middle of the night that he was grunting so loud.

            Well, if it got _too_ bad, she could always close her eyes, open the door, and chuck something at him. That’s what Mami said she had done with Papi, before she and Papi got married.

            With a yawn, Kagura slid the closet door open with her left hand and stepped out into the hallway. She stared into the living room made eerie in darkness. The roof creaked in the wind, and moonlight slanted in through a broken blind to cut through the room, across Gin-chan’s empty desk and one of the couches. She yawned and the moment broke. Facing forward again, she shuffled towards the kitchen.

            She thought about flipping on the light, but put it out of mind immediately when she thought about actually exposing her eyes to that this early in the morning. Kagura made her way to the fridge, absentmindedly noting the grit under her feet. Shinpachi really needed to sweep soon. Scratching her butt, she opened the fridge and squinted into its light.

            “Milk, milk,” she muttered, quiet, and pushed a bottle of shōyu to the side, a half-eaten container of canned pineapple. “Miiiiilk, miii—oh, there!”

            Grinning, Kagura pulled her spoils out from behind a takeout Tupperware from that all-you-can-eat place down the road. Gin-chan had taken them there last and it had ended with all three of them smuggling food out—the Tupperware in the fridge was the last of their stash.

            Holding the carton in her hand, Kagura tilted her head and closed her eyes. It felt like it was three-quarters full, so Kagura could definitely get away with a nice mugful of warm strawberry milk without Gin-chan really noticing. And if he did, she’d deny it until both their faces were blue, so there.

            Humming the Doraemon song, she shut the fridge door with her foot and put the carton of strawberry milk in the sink. When she moved her hand to the left, she realized that it was next to a pile of crusty dinner dishes that she hadn’t rinsed out, which meant there was already a cup somewhere. Blinking, she patted around with her good hand and tried to find the plastic cup she used to drink water out of. The moment she placed her fingers on the rim, she let out a whispered cackle and tipped it upside down. Drops of water hit the bottom of the sink, the sound echoing, and when she turned the cup right-side-up, she heard Gin-chan make another strangled noise.

            Scrunching her nose, Kagura set the cup at the bottom of the sink, not very careful of the noise because if Gin-chan was masturbating then he wasn’t going to be paying attention, and pulled top of the milk carton open. Her dumb stubby Papi-fingers only just long enough to encompass enough of the carton to grip it, Kagura lifted, poured lovely strawberry milk that Gin-chan absolutely wasn’t going to miss into the cup. She filled it too full and heard it spill over the sides of the rim and onto the metal of the sink before she tipped the carton back up. Oops.

            Somewhat hesitant, Kagura hefted the weight of it to check how much she’d used after all. Eh, half was close to three quarters, right? Gin-chan might notice, but it wasn’t that much. He could share the milk, right? She toed the fridge door open again and slung the milk carton back in before hiding it behind the Tupperware of ill-gotten buffet food.

            She had just shut the fridge when Gin-chan, instead of groaning, let out a gurgling cry that didn’t sound at all like any kind of pleasure or pain-pleasure—and they had just spent time in Yoshiwara, so Kagura was pretty sure that she’d know. Slowly, she stood up from her crouch, muscles in her legs aching just a little. She stood there in the silence, waiting, one arm up against her chest and one arm ready, relaxed, weight shifted forward towards the balls of her feet instead of her heels. Kagura blinked, then focused on the faint gleam of the floorboards in the hallway, the silence thick, tense.

            Suddenly, Gin-chan let out something not-quite a shout, a half bitten back name that ended in _sensei_. Kagura took a quiet step forward, then another, and was in the hall when she heard him say _No, no, not them, no_ , was in the living room on silent feet when he whimpered out _please_ , was standing right outside the door to where he slept when he gurgled _Kagu—Shinpa—nonoNO—_ and she swallowed against the lump in her throat, free hand fisted in her sleep shirt, suddenly awake and alert and trembling.

            Papi had had nightmares sometimes, when he was home. Mami had more, fitful bouts of sleep addled with sickness, and she’d never shouted but she’d sighed and whined and had gone stiff against Kagura’s small hands whenever Kagura tried to wake her. Kagura dreamed too, quiet ones about death and everybody leaving to be stronger, to provide, to die. Now this last one too, about the feel of bone snapping, flesh tearing under her hands, about the slick of blood against her knuckles and under her nails. About Scruff-Yato’s leer and Shinpachi’s bulging eyes and bile and Gin-chan’s limp and torn body. About not stopping, not wanting to stop, about refusing to stop. She swallowed again, clenched her fist tighter to stop it from trembling.

            It hadn’t occurred to her that maybe Gin-chan could have nightmares, not until ages ago when they’d woken up early for a job and he’d screamed and screamed and woke up. He had then joked and wouldn’t look her or Shinpachi in the eye, had missed them when he’d thrown the pillow. She’d looked at Shinpachi, and he had shaken his head, whispered, _‘Gin-san doesn’t like facing these things,’_ and she’d listened because it was true. And despite it all, she forgot the instance, put it to the back of her mind because Gin-chan wasn’t as loud again when he was home at night, and he joked and laughed and teased them all mercilessly and didn’t pay them on time or at all and—

            Gin-chan let out a yell, louder this time, wordless and angry and sad and with something in it so not-Gin-chan and Kagura had reached over, had gripped the handle on the door and had flung it open hard enough to slam against the end of the track before she’d fully thought about doing it.

            The bang snapped through the silence and Gin-chan sat up, then set his feet against the futon. A split second later, he was standing. Faster than that, he whirled around, blankets flying and weight centered even with his injuries, hand fisted around one upraised pillow and something wild in his eyes, a tenseness to his neck and arm that had Kagura wanting to step back. But she didn’t. She stared at Gin-chan, dropped her arm down to prop her hand against one hip, and waited.

            His breathing was loud, and for a moment he sharpened, eyes wide pupils large but lost against a sea of white, face shadowed in harsh panels. Kagura waited. One moment, two, and he blinked, started to relax. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse. “Kagura?”

            “Mmm.” She shifted her weight to one side. “You’re loud.”

            Gin-chan’s arm dropped, slowly, but when Kagura looked, his hand was still clenched around it. “What are you doing up? Brats need their sleep.”

            That was weak. Kagura narrowed her eyes. “You woke me up, y’know,” she lied, and it was especially okay to lie in this case because she had A Plan.

            “Oh?” Gin-chan said, and he was really bad at hiding when he was like this. “What do you mean? And even if I _were_ the one to wake you up, what do you expect me to do about it? I can’t magic you back to sleep—no fairy godmothers here, idiot.”

            “You’d be an ugly fairy godmother,” she said, waving her free hand in dismissal. “Who wants a perm-head waving around a dirty piece of wood to spread magic everywhere?”

            She watched his hand—both his hands. One was still fisted in the pillow, the other up and rubbing at his forehead, obscuring his eyes. In a moment of sudden clarity, Kagura realized that he couldn’t physically look at her, that he was nearly literally hiding. If she hadn’t been watching, maybe she wouldn’t have noticed.

            Gin-chan took a couple moments to respond. “Girls shouldn’t be saying things like that.”

            Okay no, Kagura thought. _That_ was weak. He was resorting to Shinpachi-isms. He really was out of it. “Well it’s true! Also, take responsibility for me being awake.”

            He chuckled, high and tense and scratchy and _not Gin-chan_. He still didn’t look at her. “How do you expect me to do that?”

            Kagura huffed and stepped into the room. She watched how he shifted, how his fingers parted a little and while she couldn’t see his face, maybe he could see hers. Well, as much as one could see in the dim lighting from between the shades on the window.

            “We’re having a sleepover!” Kagura declared. She set her fist on her hip and widened her stance. It was the I’m-In-Charge-Now-Not-You-You-Idiot stance, and Mami had used it all the time on Papi when she could stand and he was being dumb.  

            There was a moment of stunned silence before, “Sleepover?”

            “Mm!” She nodded, decisive.

            “That wouldn’t be setting a very good example. Dirty old man, young dumb girl, having a sleepover? The parents will get mad at us.”

            “Seita shoved a censored dildo into a fat man’s butt. It’s too late for that,” Kagura said. Really, this was far more reasonable. “Get out your other dumb futon and set it up and we’ll be good.”

            Gin-chan groaned, dragged his hand down his face and looked away. “Kagura, I don’t think—”

            “No you don’t. That head up there is brainless, because your dumb perm has strangled the little life that was up there.” She grinned, stepped closer. He stepped away, off the futon. Struck by sudden genius, Kagura took another step, then another, and then the moment he looked back at her for more than a split second, she dove down onto his futon, reached for the blankets and yanked them up to her neck. The instance she did, he stepped towards her, eyes wide and that familiar expression of indignation on his face.

            For that instance, everything was right. Then something shuttered: he stared at her, at somewhere around her chin, took a step back. She saw his Adam’s apple bob, and his hand was over his face. She could see him trembling now, even in the relative darkness.

            “G-Gin-chan?” She asked, eyes wide, arm throbbing and chest aching and feeling like she’d done something very wrong without knowing.

            Gin-chan let out a shaky breath, light like he was trying not to let her in on it. It was too quiet for that, but he tried anyways. Kagura sat up, let the blanket fall to her lap. She _had_ done something very wrong without knowing.

            “I’m going—” His voice cracked. He paused, then started over. “I’m going to sleep on the couch.”

            “Gin-chan,” she said again, reaching out with her left hand, but he was already moving around her, was already out the door and had shut it and Kagura felt sick, guilt pressing down on her. Pulling her knees up to her chest, she pressed her face down into them and tried not to cry. She curled her fingers into the blanket, thought about Gin-chan sitting alone in the dark, thought about Shinpachi pinned up against the ceiling by the blunt end of his own naginata, thought about blood under her fingernails and snapping bones between her hands, and failed.

 

            (two hours later, not sleeping, not really, she slowly pulls the door open, blanket around her like she used to wear it when she was young and Mami was dead and Kamui was gone and Papi was away, and she looks at the couches, and Gin-chan isn’t there

            then she moves to the kitchen, and it’s five in the morning and her cup of strawberry milk is still there, still full, lukewarm, and she picks it up and sips enough off the top that it’s not spilling everywhere at the slightest tilt of her hand and she puts it in the microwave and hits two, zero, zero, start, and watches the cup spin, slow, bathed in yellow light

            those two minutes move by as fast as the slugs the groundskeepers pick out of Soyo-chan’s family’s garden, move by as fast as the rain falls down during a typhoon, and she pulls the handle on the microwave door to open it at the shrill _beep, beep, beep_ , wraps her fingers around the warm plastic of the cup and pulls it out, and then brings it to her lips and sips

            it does not taste good

            she drinks it all anyways)

**Author's Note:**

> I was aiming for something very different at the end. like. comfort. or bonding. instead all that happened was pain.


End file.
